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Company showcase
1.1 General information about IKK Sdwest
The IKK Sdwest is a statutory health insurance company, and is known as a guild
health insurance fund in Germany. As a statutory health insurance, this company is
the last public corporation due to its long existence. The IKK Sdwest serves about
687.351 insurance holders. Their headquarters are located in Saarland,
more precisely, in Saarbrcken. To serve customers in Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, and
Saarland better, the company has many different branches located in these states.
Only by living or working in these states, a prospect can become an insuree. The
IKK Sdwest service hotline is available 24-hours. As a statutory health insurance,
the IKK Sdwest is providing its services based on the system of statutory health
insurances in Germany. The chief executive officer, who gets newly elected every six
years, currently is Mr. Jrg Loth.


Mr. Jrg Loth


1.2 Employees tasks
There are many different departments at IKK, therefore, the tasks which an insurance
specialist at IKK has to work on, differ from each department. For example,
specialists working in the regional service department, take care of the ID cards of
insurees, as well as travel reimbursements. Whereas the specialists in the
therapeutic appliances department take care of appliances such as prostheses,
hearing aids, wheelchairs, and so forth. Generally, the tasks of employees are to
process insuree contracts, check claims for therapeutic appliances, and providing
consultations to insurees.
2. History of IKK Sdwest
The first IKK branch was opened in January 1995 in Saarbrcken, Saarland. In
August 1995, IKK Rheinland-Pfalz and IKK Rheinland-Pfalz Nord merged to IKK
Rheinland-Pfalz with their headquarters located in Mainz. IKK des Saarlandes was
renamed in IKK Sdwest Direkt in July of 2004. About a year later the IKK
Rheinland-Pfalz was renamed to IKK Sdwest-Plus. In January of 2006 the IKK
Plus and IKK Direkt were opened in Hesse. All of these companies merged to the
currently known IKK Sdwest in July of 2009.
3. Apprenticeship
Apart from the normal apprenticeship as an insurance specialist, the IKK Sdwest in
Mainz is offering the opportunity for an apprenticeship as a management customer
service representative, and as a head of health care management. The vocational
school for this apprenticeship is in Hagen and takes up to 3 years to complete. You
will need at least a Realschulabschluss to be admitted to the program. If you have
Abitur, you could reduce the length to 2 years. The ability to work in a team, and
flexibility are very important. You will also need the ability to take criticism, and some
computer knowledge. Good knowledge in German, social studies, and mathematics
are essential.
4. Experiences so far
Due to my previous one year internship at IKK Sdwest, I have a fundamental
knowledge about the position as an insurance specialist. I was able to make myself
aware of the tasks, which a person in such position is performing daily. Furthermore,
I was allowed to work very independently and had lots of fun in the internship. As
soon I had questions, one of the colleagues took the time to answer them to me.
Since I wanted to learn how daily life in this position looks like, I took this internship
very seriously. I had various tasks to do like the processing and confirming the cost
coverage of therapeutic appliances and much more. The one year internship really
made me strongly desire this position; I really suggest it to anybody else.